


Give him the world

by numinousnumbat



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Post-Canon, Sex, Sex Magic, well ... a little bit of magic and a lot of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-10 21:25:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12920568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numinousnumbat/pseuds/numinousnumbat
Summary: Ronan has an idea how he and Adam can leave Virginia and keep their connection to Cabeswater. (Sex, the answer is sex.)





	Give him the world

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn't notice from the tags, this is a sex-heavy story. Adam and Ronan are in a serious long-term relationship and although they're not verbally asking for consent in this story, the sex is 100% consensual. They're both also 18 in this story, set in the summer after finishing high school.

Ronan had been watching the back of Adam’s head for the past mile or so; they were hiking up, up, up a mountain. He was pretty sure he knew how to fix it, to fix them? not that they needed fixing, but they were going to have to talk about it, and his words, despite his intentions, were as likely to slice as they were to heal. 

He’d tried showing last night, not words, but Adam hadn’t understood, had thought that Ronan found Adam lacking, and he  _didn’t_. But doubt was always there in Adam’s mind; he couldn’t just be at peace that Ronan loved Adam, even in - especially in - all the places that Adam found himself lacking.

Thank god, their tour leader Nigel was calling for a break in this neverending climb. The motley group paused in their hike, happy for a moment to rest and have a bite to eat. It was overcast but, for once, not drizzling and a pleasant temperature. Cold for that first few minutes of walking, but by now most of the group had shed their outermost jackets, and Ronan - despite his Southern upbringing - was down to his black muscle tee.

It was a week-long walk, walking by day and enjoying Welsh hospitality at small inns or B&Bs at night. Ronan and Adam were by far the youngest two on this walk: the tour leader, an octogenarian and the other two couples, retired. Ronan and Adam didn’t fit in precisely, but then again they never did. And then again, where could they possibly? But everyone was friendly, and conversation was easy. 

Ronan and Adam hadn’t talked this morning. Adam might have asked for the toothpaste in the tiny bathroom of the inn where they had stayed, but then again he might have just held out his hand and Ronan handed it over. Ronan had hurt Adam, again, and he hated himself for it.

Adam opened his thermos of tea and sat on a large flat rock, his back to the group, overlooking the path they had walked up. There were a few stone walls that were probably as old as anything in Virginia and a well-worn footpath, but everything else was lightly tamed nature.

Ronan sat next to him. “Hey,” he said. Adam didn’t say anything, but shifted enough that their thighs were touching. Adam sighed. If they hadn’t been in the middle of a fight, this was when Adam would normally lay his head against Ronan’s shoulder for a moment.

Ronan could do this. He could take what he understood from a lifetime of dreaming and turn it into words that made sense, words that wouldn't hurt Adam. “What I was trying to do last night -”

Adam cut him off. “You don't like having sex with me,” he said. His already thin lips were pressed into an even thinner line.

“No, that's not it." Ronan grimaced at his shoes and ground out, "I'm sorry." He could feel righteous anger gurgling low in his belly, ready to erupt. He took a calming breath like he practiced. “I was trying to say that I think we can use sex as a way to communicate with Cabeswater, we just have to do it different.”

“That doesn't make sense,” Adam said flatly. "That's not how it works for me."   
  
“I know,” Ronan said. "I'm just guessing." He opened a package of trail mix he had in his pocket as a way to do something with his hands, so he didn't have to look at Adam as he spoke. “But the times I feel the most like me are when I’m in Cabeswater and when you’re fucking me, and I think we can link them that way while we're away.” He shrugged to lessen the unrehearsed truth that just was pouring out of his mouth. "Our normal way isn't working, we need to try something else." It came out more of a plea than his usual stubbornness. 

It hung in the air between them. If Adam wanted to be able to go to Harvard in the fall like he had planned, they needed to figure out how to make the distance work. 

It was hard for either of them to leave Cabeswater and the ley lines that had come to define their high school years. Ronan was tied to Cabeswater and his home, The Barns. He had found that he couldn’t physically leave for too long or else part of him - whatever made him, him - started to disappear; he started to be less himself. A few days away and food was blander, sounds were duller, the world was dimmer. He didn't want to know what would happen after that; it felt like a line that shouldn't be crossed.

When Ronan had remade Cabeswater after the first one's sacrifice, he hadn’t intended to keep Adam bound to it - bound to him - but Adam had insisted. Adam hadn’t wanted to go back to being ordinary; he had wanted to keep his magic. Adam went in eyes open this time, he knew that the price for that magic was a lifetime commitment to Cabeswater, to Ronan. 

Ronan could have happily stayed in their part of Virginia forever, but Adam wanted - _needed_ \- out of their small corner of the world. Hence this trip, carefully selected with the help of Professor Malory so that they could spend time on ley lines that should keep the two of them connected to their home. Ronan hoped this was the start of many more trips for the two of them, he wanted to be able to give Adam the world. (Adam had given him his world.)

Ronan could tell within a day that being away was affecting Adam. He left his breakfast half-eaten, which he never did. His deaf ear was already a hindrance, and the longer they were away, Adam was having a harder and harder time following conversations. They were overlooking a beautiful valley and neither had bothered to take a photo or enjoy the sight in any sort of way. Ronan knew that it was beautiful, but he was having a hard time _feeling_  that it was beautiful; he could have been looking at a pile of laundry or a crack in a sidewalk and felt the same thing: nothing.

Ronan and Adam had tried their normal way of connecting to Cabeswater the first few nights: Ronan dreaming and Adam scrying next to him, but although Ronan had made it to Cabeswater, Adam hadn't, he had just stared and stared at the bowl. Ronan was sure that this could work, it was just a matter of figuring out _how_. It was taking too much energy to remain here: it was trying to stay up to study at the desk next to your bed knowing that you could just crawl in and pull the covers up and everything would be better for a bit. If someone handed them tickets for a flight home that left in an hour, he'd be running towards the airport.

Ronan had been thinking and thinking about it, and sex was his best plan, his only plan.

Cabeswater to Ronan was as much a feeling as a place. Sometimes when they were fucking, Ronan felt like they were in Cabeswater, sometimes a faint rustle of leaves or the smell of trees, but usually the sense of place that it radiated, like it was real and the rest of the world was the dream. He figured he could bring Adam with him in his dream that way, they just needed to amplify and focus on what happened naturally. If they could figure out how to do this together, then they could learn to do it apart and Adam could go to college like he planned. 

Their sex was sometimes really  _really_ good and sometimes mind-blowingly amazing, the stuff of song and poetry. Adam only topped. Before he was with Adam, Ronan had thought of himself as a top, but once Adam had one hesitant finger in him, Ronan had seen the error of his ways. Neither Ronan nor Adam had known what they were doing that first time - hell, the first dozen times - but they figured it out, together. Ronan knew what people would assume when they saw the two of them together, but although Ronan never lied, he liked that people would guess wrong, make the wrong assumptions about him and Adam. 

As Adam had gained more confidence in the bedroom, he had learned how Ronan liked it, how to take without giving. It was the first time Adam was taking in his life, and Ronan let him, encouraged him. If Adam couldn’t sleep, he’d roll Ronan to his side, prep him as quickly as possible and press in, using Ronan to orgasm as quickly as possible so he could fall asleep. Or if they were fighting - and they sometimes fought a lot - Ronan would let Adam bend him this way or that way and they could fuck forgiveness into each other, their actions saying what their mouths could not. 

There was a wall with Adam. Ronan was able to see more of Adam than anyone, but Adam still held a part of himself back. If Adam could let Ronan in, let himself be vulnerable, then this could work. Getting to Cabeswater was easy to do in his dreams, he needed to do it in real life, too, for Adam. Their connection had to be enough.

That night they were in the attic of another B&B, this attic startling hot after the last room had been so cold. Ronan took a long shower, and walked into their room with just a towel around his waist. They had pushed together the two twin beds, and Adam was sitting on the bed closest to the bathroom, clothes on. He had his journal out, although it didn’t look like he had been writing.

“I don't think this is going to work,” Adam said. 

“We’ll figure it out.” He walked to Adam and tugged at the bottom of his shirt. “Can I?”

Adam put his arms up and Ronan slowly peeled the shirt up and off. It was damp from the drizzle that had started shortly before the end of the day, so Ronan spread it across the heater to dry overnight. By the time Ronan turned back, Adam was unbuckling his belt. Ronan sat next to him and placed his hands on Adam’s to stop him.

“Let me,” he said.

“I don’t need you to take care of me,” Adam said.

“We take care of each other,” Ronan said.

Adam looked skeptical, but leaned back on his hands, presumably to give Ronan room to continue taking off his clothes. Ronan went for a kiss, a long one full of tongue and threaded his fingers through Adam's hair. Adam was tense at first but relaxed into it; they were good at kissing, they had a lot of practice with this.

"I don't like not knowing what's going to happen," Adam said quietly. 

"We're going to get you to Cabeswater the same way I do it." Ronan sank to the ground, and kneeling in front of Adam, untied his boots and pulled them off one-by-one. "I'll be your guide." He peeled off the expensive wool socks that had been a gift from Gansey to Adam for the trip. Ronan took the boots and socks over to the heater for them to dry, too.

"What if we get stuck?" Adam asked. "What if I can't be there to pull you out?" 

Ronan had thought about that. "Cabeswater won't hurt us anymore," Ronan said. "It's not infected." 

Adam had laid back on the pillow and was looking at Ronan, what? apprehensively? That wasn’t right, not for them, not for this. Ronan tossed his towel onto a chair and climbed on top of Adam naked. Adam canted his hips up in a way that said _take my pants off_ but Ronan ignored that for a moment and went back to kissing him.  
  
“Think about Cabeswater,” he told Adam. “Picture it in your mind.”

With his eyebrows creased in doubt, Adam closed his eyes. “It's too far away,” he said.

“We were on a ley line that connected directly to it all day,” Ronan said into Adam’s good ear. He kissed his way down Adam’s jawline.

Adam sighed. “This isn’t working, I should try scrying again.”

"Give me a chance,” Ronan said softly. “Think about how the leaves sound in the wind.”

Adam still had an incredulous look on his face. “I can only hear the sounds of the heater and the bathtub dripping.”

“Think about how it feels to put your feet in the lake,” Ronan said, sucking a tiny red mark into Adam’s shoulder.

Ronan closed his eyes, too, and thought about Cabeswater. It was so close for him, only a thought away. It used to be a dream away, then a pill - a dream pill - away, but now he could get there by thinking about it, as long as he felt safe enough for his mind to wander. He could tell when Adam finally relaxed because there were a few more notes to the scents, a little more pine than Ronan typical smelled, a hit of something flowering. “That’s right,” Ronan murmured. Adam might not have heard that since Ronan was now kissing his way up to his bad ear.

He kissed his way down Adam’s chest and started undoing his belt and then the button and zipper of his pants, so by the time his mouth was near Adam’s belly button, he was sliding Adam’s pants and boxers down his hips, past his knees, and off. He tossed them to the floor and they landed with a jangle as they hit the rug. He went back to Adam’s cock, this time with his hands and mouth. They were both mostly hard already.

God, Ronan loved Adam’s cock. It wouldn’t have mattered what it looked like since it was Adam’s, but the fact was if he had dreamed a boyfriend it wouldn’t have been Adam - maybe Adam with the hard edges sanded off, but that wouldn’t have been Adam - but if he had dreamed of a cock, it would _definitely_ be this one. Adam didn’t like to hear _I love your cock_ because he had been born with it and Adam was by nature suspicious of everything that he had been born with and only proud of the things he had done, and then only if he had done them in the hardest way imaginable. So Ronan thought to himself about how much he loved Adam’s cock, and only told Adam that he loved the way he fucked him.

Adam still had his eyes shut, was he thinking about all of the times they had fucked in Cabeswater? Was he thinking about when he had pledged himself to it? Or some other time, maybe a time that was insignificant to Ronan but everything to Adam? 

Adam handed Ronan the lube from where he had stashed it under his pillow - _get on with it_ , he was saying - and Ronan did. The tube spit out too much but that was fine and Ronan smeared it messily between his hands to warm it up before smoothing it down Adam’s perfect cock.

“Where are you?” Ronan asked softly.

"Wales."

Ronan smiled, smartass. "What are you picturing in your head?"

“Next to the lake,” Adam answered, which was a where and a when. Or maybe the lake was there for Adam always. It was hard to be sure and it wasn’t Ronan’s right to know.

Ronan crawled up Adam and let their cocks slide together. “What are the trees saying?”

“ _Festinant_ ,” Adam said.

Ronan laughed. He closed his eyes again and thought about Cabeswater. He spread more of the lube onto his fingers and awkwardly slid them up his hole to finish prepping himself. It was always nicer when Adam did this part, but he needed Adam to be focused on Cabeswater right now, not Ronan’s asshole, which is why he had already done most of his prep in the shower. As ready as he needed, he took Adam’s cock in one hand and lined himself on it. “Ok?” he asked Adam.

“Yeah,” Adam said his voice sounding distant, like they were talking on opposite sides of a room. “Let’s go.”

Ronan closed his eyes and thought about the lake in Cabeswater - the smell and the sounds and the feel - and gently pressed down against Adam’s cock. This wasn’t one of their usual positions - Adam liked to be in control and this was too vulnerable for him - so Ronan wanted to make extra sure he had everything lined up properly. He had, and slid down and down on Adam’s cock until Adam was all the way in. He paused, loving this feeling when he felt full, too full and a little painful in all the right ways.

“God,” Adam said breathing out heavily.

Ronan could feel a warm breeze on his back and pine needles under his knees. It had worked for him. Ronan peeked open one eye to look at down Adam, pale chest leading up to his beautiful face, where he had his eyes closed and was moaning just under his breath.

“I can hear the lake,” Adam said, sounding surprised. Adam’s hands went searching for Ronan’s and Ronan pressed them on either side of Adam’s head. “Open your eyes,” Ronan said. He was pretty sure his plan had worked, but he couldn't know for sure until Adam told him they were seeing the same thing.

“Whoa,” Adam said as he opened his eyes. “Am I dreaming? Is this my dream?”

Ronan was pleased. “No, we did it.” He leaned over for a kiss, letting Adam’s cock slowly slide most of the way out, their lips pressing together just as the head of Adam’s cock was at Ronan’s rim, where he could feel it the best. They kissed more, Ronan keeping Adam's hands pressed to the ground.

“Come on, more,” Adam demanded between kisses and Ronan used his hands on Adam’s hands to brace himself and slide back down.

“God,” Adam exhaled again.

Ronan smiled. They were here at Cabeswater, where they needed to be, so they could do this Adam's preferred way now. He rode Adam hard, the way Adam loved it, Adam moaning louder and louder. “Yes,” Ronan told him, “the only ones that can hear you are me and the trees.”

“More, more,” Adam panted and Ronan set up a punishing pace, riding Adam as hard as he could. He saw in Adam’s face when he came, a low grunt and then the extra fluid making the thrusting even slicker. He kept up his pace until Adam grabbed his hips to stop him.

Ronan was so hard, painfully, exquisitely hard, he just needed a few strokes to finish. Adam directed him with his hands to lay next to him on the rather itchy bed of pine needles, and Ronan took the opportunity to kiss him deep and hard. Adam was still panting and reached down to stroke Ronan. “I’m giving this to Cabeswater,” Adam said keeping his strokes long and even, the way Ronan liked it.

“Yeah, ok,” Ronan said. He shut his eyes and thought about how it felt with Adam kissed him, how it felt when Adam came in him, and Adam stroked faster, his hand now concentrating on the head of Ronan’s cock, Ronan felt his orgasm building and building and as Adam said _Come_ Ronan did, his thoughts full of Cabeswater, of Adam. Ronan squeezed his eyes shut and felt himself coming over Adam’s hands. Adam's hands stilled and they both breathed the same air and enjoyed their moment of bliss.

Ronan opened his eyes and they were back in the attic of the B&B in Wales.

Still slightly out of breath, Adam brushed a handful of pine needles out of the bed and Ronan picked a leaf out of Adam’s hair. Adam was smiling faintly, he looked happy, serene maybe. Like he had been fucked real good, Ronan thought to himself. He pulled Adam’s face to his and kissed him deeply.

“How was that?” Ronan asked as they broke apart.

“Smugness doesn’t become you,” Adam said, no fire to his voice, still happy and boneless from the orgasm. “You know damn well how that was.”

“Smug looks great on me,” Ronan said, and it wasn’t a lie. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” Adam said after a pause. “More stable, more …” he trailed off. “I feel more … something.”

“More you,” Ronan suggested quietly.

“More us,” Adam said.

“Yes,” Ronan agreed. This had worked, they were going to be able to leave Virginia whenever Adam wanted, and Ronan was going to be able to give him the world. Whatever magic Adam had and whatever magic Ronan had was nothing compared to the magic they had together. “More us.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I wrote this in one sitting halfway through "Blue Lily, Lily Blue" and hoped it could still work within canon as I finished the series. I was obsessively listening to Taylor Swift's "Delicate" as I edited, so now it's a song from Ronan to Adam in my head. 
> 
> The Latin is from google translate; if it's wrong, consider it adding to the flavor of the story, right?
> 
> Edit on 6 Feb 2018: And I was wrong! Thank you to an [anonymous commenter](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/141982092) who said, "if you wanted to know, festinant is ‘they hurry’ if you meant hurry (as in an order), it would be festina (sing) or festinate (pl) :)" 
> 
> I am on [tumblr](https://numinousnumbat.tumblr.com/).


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